Setup and Motors

Last night and early this morning I worked on figuring out exactly how much wire I will need for the project.  I drew a diagram of my planned LED setup and it wasn't too bad. (150 ft of 18awg and 200ft of 22awg)  Next I started to draw the motor setup and realized that I would also need to calculate the amount of wire going from the chips to the place in the motor circuits.  This ended my hope of having 96 motors.  I only calculated the closest 20 motors to the arduino and I was already at 46 ft.  I decided to stop there and figure out a more realistic approach. After talking with Wayne, I've decided to start with just 27 motors.  They will be able to be controlled by just the Arduino Mega.  This will solve my microchip problems as well.  Once I get this setup working I may move on to more motors depending on if  it is necessary for the aesthetic.  Since I only need 27 motors now I decided to buy the more expensive motors.  The power supply will only need 6.75 amps and it won't end up costing that much more.

Motors and 595 chip

The motor schematic has worked flawlessly.  Two motors have stood out as the most efficient and cost effective.

1955669 (canon)

1810099

The second motor is less expensive than the canon and requires much fewer amps at maximum efficiency, .06 compared to .25.  It also has quite a bit less torque 14.8 g/cm compared to 34.8 g/cm.  To run the 96 motors I am planning on using it would only require 5.76 amperes at 12volts.  The canon would require 24 amps.  Although this may seem like a given, the second motor is cheaper and would require less amperes but it doesn't appear to be as high quality.  I have until Monday to make my final decision.  That is when I order the first set of parts.

I haven't had as much luck with the 595 chip.  I tried several times today to get it working with just LED's but the communications between the arduino and the chip just aren't working.  I'll try again tomorrow.

Communication between Arduinos

I knew I was going to need more than one arduino in order to control the planned 96 motors for this project but I wasn't entirely certain on how I would go about communication.  I need to work with processing to get the Kinect data to work but I also need to use arduino environment in order to send data to the 74HC595 chip. To prevent writing my own basic communication into the processing and arduino code I will try using this I2C.

I2C between Arduinos

Pixels in an Array

Inspired by Making Things See book

I am so pumped for this project!  I've been reading the Making Things See book that I bought earlier this week and it's giving me so many good ideas.  Once I build the LED/Motor grid there will be so many opportunities to explore through Processing.  The grid will be a medium for me to explore all sorts of interactivity.  It's really exciting!  I hope I have time after I get the grid set up to experiment with the code.

Parallel Open Activity

I went over a quick review of what happens in a parallel circuit when branches are open.  I was worried that if I had only one motor running it would receive all the current from the power supply because the other motors would be open circuits.  Luckily, opening a branch circuit reduces the total current so each motor will always receive the same amount of current.

Here's the link:
Opens and Shorts in a Parallel Circuit

Kinect to Processing

I have literally never experienced something so frustrating, there are dozens of websites explaining this and not a single one worked.  After at least six or seven hours of attempting to install the right drivers and version of OpenNI I found out that I needed to redownload processing in the 32 bit version and the 32 bit versions of OpenNI.

Today I bought the Making Things See ebook and it has been extremely helpful.  I am now working on getting one motor controlled by the depth received by the Kinect.  Tomorrow is the critique so hopefully it works.